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A week to go, and Dems still have an unusually low number of candidates running

I was speaking with a state legislator today about the latest on who is running, and who isn’t, and noticing the very limited number of candidates out there he asked “Do the Dems even have 15 people running for the State Legislature yet?”

Thanks to my insomnia, I got about 4 hours sleep last night, and now I have to do math?? Dang it.

But the question was put out there for me, so I had to look it up. What did I find? It’s more than 15, but not by many. There are currently 19 Democrats with petitions in for 105 legislative seats.

Delving into specifics, Democrats have petitions in for 9 people competing for the 35 State Senate Seats (25.7%) and only 10 for the 70 House seats (14.3%). For people out there counting, those numbers really suck. (For those who will inevitably ask, Republicans currently have 23 people who have filed for senate seats, and 39 who have filed for house seats.)

With just over a week to go, that’s not leaving much time for Democrats to appear as if they’re legitimately competing for the State Legislature. Even doubling their current numbers does not, despite the boast of Ann Tornberg that she will fill all 105 legislative seats.

So, keep watching the SDWC candidate list which I’ll be updating with the latest and greatest until we hit March 29th, when the time for bluffing will be over, and everyone will have to show their cards.

Again, we need to up the threshold for filing an initiative and measure. They (non Republicans) obviously don’t care to compete so we allow them to harass ? South Dakota signature requirements are too low in relationship to other states and even our own municipalities ! It would be nice of this to be fixed for an added quality of life. As it stands, it’s intellectually and economically inefficient. All we need is courage. Tall order…

I’m a little more worried about the fact that 40% of legislative seats don’t yet have a GOP candidate. One assumes that there will be a flurry of last-minute filings by both parties, with most, if not all, of the 105 seats having a GOP candidate. One question is, how many of the 105 seats will have a Democratic candidate? Another question is, how many of the 105 seats will have a candidate from either party who are non-serious placeholder names?